Sound Across Specific Slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Learn how to loop a sound clip across specific slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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Author:Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: November 21, 2014Last Updated: November 21, 2014

After adding an audio/sound track to your
PowerPoint presentation, you can let the inserted audio span across all your slides in your presentation by selecting the
Play across slides option. This is done when
you need the same music playing through all your slides. But what if you want the music to play only across some successive slides? What
if you want the music to play from slide 1 to 12, and let all slides thereafter play without any music? Or you may want to add another
audio clip for the next set of slides? Either way, it is possible to limit the number of slides that your music will play across.

Remember: As far as possible, work with a presentation that has been saved at least once.

Follow these steps to stop your music after specific number of slides in
PowerPoint 2011:

We assume you have already added a music clip and set it to
play across slides. In that case, proceed
straightaway to Step 4 of this tutorial. If not, first
insert the audio clip on the slide
from which you want the music to start playing.

Now, select the music icon so that you can see the contextual Format Audio tab (highlighted in
red within Figure 1) in the
Ribbon -- click this tab to activate it, as shown in
Figure 1. Within the Format Audio tab, click the Start button (highlighted in
blue within Figure 1).

Figure 1: Format Audio tab selected within the Ribbon

This opens the Start drop-down menu, as shown inFigure 2 -- select
the Play Across Slides option as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Play Across Slides option selected

Now click the Playback Options button (highlighted in red within Figure 2, above) to bring up a drop-down menu. Within this drop-down menu, select both the Hide Icon During Show
and Loop Until Stopped options (highlighted in red within
Figure 3).

Figure 3: Hide Icon During Show and Loop Until Stopped options selected

Now click the Toolbox button (highlighted in red within Figure 4)
within the
Standard Toolbar. This bring up the
Toolbox, as shown highlighted in
blue within Figure 4 -- select the Custom Animation tab, as shown
highlighted in green, within Figure 4.

Within the Custom Animation tab of the
Toolbox, you will see an animation associated with your
audio clip (highlighted in red within Figure 5). Select this animation to enable the
additional Toolbox sections and options, as shown highlighted in blue, within
Figure 5.

Figure 5: Animation associated with the
audio clip selected

Click on Media Options (highlighted in red within Figure 6) to
access the options within, as shown in Figure 6. Locate the After radio button that may show a value
of 999 slides, (highlighted in blue, within Figure 6).

Figure 6: Do you want the music to span 999 slides?

Tip: Why does the After option shows 999 slides? That's because 999 is the largest number that
PowerPoint can accept for spanning audio clips across slides, and Play Across Slides option that we chose earlier (see
Figure 2, shown earlier on this page) caused the After option to populate with the number, 999.

Now, change the value from 999 to the number of slides after which you want the music to stop. For example, you may want the audio
clip to only play for 12 consecutive slides -- in that case, replace 999 with 12.

Tip: If you want your first music clip to play for slides 1 to 12, and then start another music clip on slide 13 that
plays for several more consecutive slides, go ahead and add a new audio clip on slide 13. Thereafter bring up the Media Options
section for this audio clip, as shown in Figure 6, above -- type in the number of slides you want this new
audio clip to span in the After box.

Have your ever used keyboard shortcuts and sequences in PowerPoint? Or are you a complete keyboard aficionado? Do you want to learn about some new shortcuts? Or do you want to know if your favorite keyboard shortcuts are documented?